Skip to main content
Drink

The Authors Cheap Consomme

A clear vegetable consommé made with carrots, onions, turnip, celery, sugar, salt, water, and Liebig's Extract of Meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The Authors Cheap Consomme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Divide the carrots into four parts.

  2. Combine all ingredients in a stewpan.

Simmer and strain

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are soft.

  2. Add the Liebig Extract and simmer for an additional 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture through a fine colander into a basin.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Carrots
Add sweetness and body to the broth as they soften and release their flavour.
Onions
Contribute savoury depth and aroma to the stock as they cook down.
Turnip
Adds a mild, earthy flavour to the broth while it simmers.
Liebig company's extract of meat
Provides concentrated meaty savouriness that deepens the broth's overall flavour.

The step that matters

Simmering until the vegetables are soft. Simmering gently extracts flavour slowly; a hard boil can cloud the liquid and push fine particles through the strainer, so keep it at a gentle simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, turnip, celery, sugar, meat):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, turnip, celery, sugar, meat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Vegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipesBlackberry CordialBlackberry Cordial129 recipes